How long to back on the bike from dislocated shoulder...?

Not the best way to end a week teaching a group of novices - the "how not to use your face and shoulder to brake on the upslope of a set of tabletops" lesson...

Fortunately the other instructor patched me up temporarily and got me to Dr Gray's in Elgin, from the BMX jumps in Forres. Status check - dislocated left shoulder, sprained (I think) right elbow, couple of stitches & glue in top lip, glue in chin, nice weepy gravel rash on face, neck, chest. I'm now under orders to wear a sling for 2 weeks as well.

So how long after coming out of the sling have others taken to get back on the bike? The turbo will be prepped and ready shortly for fitness maintenance in the meantime & I'm fortunate that physio will be easily accessible through work as well...

3 weeks I was on the turbo, 6 weeks I was out on the road bike, still struggle with mtb as standing up and putting effort in(climbing etc) rattles my shoulder. Original injury was Feb 2012, still got pain/weakness. Hoping for surgery as not being able to stand and climb has seriously,limited my cycling. I did "have to buy" a carbon roadbikw to help my recovery though!

It will never be as strong again and you might want to consider surgery. I've done both of mine countless times, probably in the region of 20 in total. I've had both operated on with open surgery which gives me limited movement but keeps them in situ (touch wood). There is a keyhole option too but it's less effective.

The bad news is that it's six months recovery from the open surgery. From your initial dislocation this week you'll feel bruised and it will feel really vulnerable for a couple of weeks until the soft tissue recovers. You'll need some intense physio to get it strong again and I wouldn't consider riding again for six weeks. It'll feel fine after about three but believe me it's really susceptible to popping out again.

Double balls... So 3 Peaks is out the window... I was, however, thinking about a new road bike - this could be a good excuse.

Fortunately, being in the forces means quick access to physio rather than having to wait for the NHS (who did a fine job cleaning me up) and military physios are used to dealing with these kinds of injuries, either from training or due to blast trauma, so hopefully things should be OK. Plus, because I was instructing a military group it's classed as an injury whilst on duty so, if it gets to that point, surgery would come courtesy of the MoD.

Lucky there weren't more casualties. When I was an army ski instructor in Bavaria I once said "follow me", then promptly failed to see a drop off in bad light (that's my excuse anyway) and face planted into a drift. Sure enough, when I looked round there was a neat row of lads lying beside me with cheeky grins. "Well, you said..."

Hope you get it sorted ASAP, but no doubt you will need that new road bike as a recovery aid.

i dislocated both my shoulders at the Big Bike Bash a couple of years back. One went in fairly easily but the other needed a trip to A&E after the BBB finished to get it pulled out and put in properly (not as pleasant as it sounds).

I was riding again in 6-8 weeks but it was probably 6 month before I could comfortably pull the front wheel up or take a hard landing.

Strangely it then seemed to deteriorate and I had trouble raising my arms to 90 degrees. Not sure is this was personal laziness or lack of physio. It then took me about three months of exercising to get my arms up about shoulder level. Strangely I found Yoga on the Wii Fit worked really well.